Abnormal Signs in Kenipra (2)
"Honestly, Father. Sending his only son to a place that dangerous…"
The young man in the elaborately ornamented armor muttered under his breath.
"Even so, Young Lord Rene, your efforts did secure the Little Gate. All that remains is clearing out the monsters inside."
Riding beside him was a man with a staff in hand. His attire made it plain he was a Magic Assistant.
"Then all that's left is to hold the Kenipra Gate. I wish this wretched war would just end already."
The soldiers trailing behind them were in poor shape. Their skin was dry and ashen, their eyes sunken hollow. Exhausted by battle after battle, even walking had become an ordeal.
"Young Lord, would it not be wiser to go around Bakoro Forest up ahead?"
An escort knight approached with a map spread open in his hands.
"Since the Little Gate was breached, packs of monsters have been spreading through every corner of the territory. The dense canopy in Bakoro Forest makes it nearly impossible to maintain a clear line of sight. For safety's sake, I believe we should avoid cutting straight through the woods."
Rene Bacler, young lord of the Kenipra region, wore an expression of pure discontent.
"Didn't we cut through Bakoro Forest when we went to seal the Little Gate? That way saves far more time."
"The situation was desperately urgent then. Monsters were pouring through the Little Gate. We had to arrive as quickly as possible, so we risked the crossing."
Even the knight's cool-headed assessment failed to move Rene.
"I want to get to Father as soon as I can. This expedition has been exhausting. Look at the men behind us—they're all worn out. And in this state you want us to take a route that adds days, all because of some baseless suspicion?"
The escort knight glanced back at the trailing soldiers, and his resolve wavered.
Well… nothing happened on the way here either. And there's been no report of monsters occupying Bakoro Forest.
"As the Young Lord commands."
The escort knight bowed his head and withdrew from Rene's side.
Bakoro Forest was so densely wooded that almost no one entered it except lumberjacks.
"Come on, just show me once."
"We never know when something might happen. Mana must always be conserved."
Rene whined at the man holding the staff.
"If you want to keep this employment arrangement, you'd better do a good job of it."
Under Rene's threat, the man had no choice but to yield. The young lord held his livelihood in the palm of his hand.
"Understood. I'll show you briefly, then."
Rene watched him with a face full of eager anticipation.
"Let thy power become the wellspring of life and soak the world—Aqua."
A jet of water burst from his hand with a sharp hiss.
"That's amazing!"
Rene clapped at the man's magic, looking for all the world like a child delighted by a jester's tricks.
That was when it happened.
A sharp whistle cut through the forest.
A wet crack followed, and a soldier's head burst, spraying blood.
"What—what is—"
The man never finished his sentence. He shared his comrade's fate in the next instant. Massive stones came hurtling in from every direction.
"Lord Rene, we're under attack!"
Rene felt the hair on his scalp stand on end. From both flanks, hundreds of orcs and goblins came pouring out of the trees.
"Kieeek!"
"Chireuk."
How could so many monsters be here of all places?
He had heard no reports of villages attacked along the route from the Little Gate to Bakoro Forest.
Did those things sneak in here without us knowing?
That was the only explanation that made sense. Unlike the monsters so far, these ones were not rampaging through the nearby villages without discrimination.
"Hold the line! Do not let the formation break!"
The battle-hardened escort knight took command. But his shouts scattered into empty air.
The orcs swung their axes with their enormous frames. Soldiers struck by those blades had their heads crushed in a single blow.
"Doyle! Do something!"
Rene called desperately to the man with the staff.
"Become a raging flame and burn all things to ash—Fireball."
Doyle was just as rattled. But he was a Magic Assistant with considerable combat experience, and he unleashed a Fireball that would devastate densely packed enemies.
Even so, there was only so much he could do on this battlefield. A mere Magic Assistant could not reverse the tide of war.
"Kiiik!"
The burning goblins shrieked.
But far too many monsters remained.
"Gather around me! Don't scatter!"
Terror-stricken Rene shouted. Not a single soldier heeded his order.
"What are you all doing? Don't give ground—fight! I can't die here!"
He finally squeezed his eyes shut and screamed. The thought that he was fated to die in this place seized him.
A roaring blaze. The sound of a pig having its throat cut. The smell of roasting meat. Rene cracked open his eyes.
Crackling arcs of electricity erupted on every side.
Was that Doyle?
Rene thought of the Magic Assistant in his unit—then immediately shook his head. This was nothing that man could have produced.
Then who?
Even as the question formed, a figure entered his sight. Through the fluttering folds of a deep blue-green robe, the man's face flashed into view.
His gestures were so fluid they could only be called elegant.
The results were the opposite of elegant. With each graceful sweep of his hand, the heads of several monsters went flying.
Is that even human? Who uses magic like that?
Doyle was no less astonished. As a Magic Assistant himself, his reaction was even more intense.
Is that one of those high-circle mages I've only heard about?
A massive boulder materialized and crushed two orcs flat.
"A mage has come to aid us! Pull yourselves together, all of you! We can survive this!"
Doyle was the first to recover his wits. The appearance of this unknown mage, he realized, could completely turn the atmosphere of the battle.
"Uwaaah!"
"Let's show them what we've got!"
"Don't you dare take humans lightly!"
The soldiers tightened their grips on swords and spears. Fighting spirit kindled in their eyes once more.
"Let thy authority seize all things and purify them—Burning Hands."
Doyle himself found his confidence returning.
And so the unit that had stood on the brink of annihilation turned the tables and slaughtered the monsters instead.
"Thank you for saving us."
"Without you, sir mage, we never would have made it home."
"We will never forget this debt."
When the fighting ended, the soldiers dropped to their knees before the man in the deep blue-green robe.
Rene approached him.
One look at his prowess made it obvious he was a high-circle mage. Rene offered the courtesy due a mage of the Magic Tower.
"You have my deepest thanks. May I ask who you are?"
"Baron Remi Veritati. I was on my way here in answer to a request for support from the Kenipra region."
The words startled Doyle even more than Rene.
Remi Veritati? Don't tell me—the Silent Mage? The one who made a fool of the Magic Tower?
He had heard the rumors from his colleagues.
A mage who had casually defeated one of the Tower's proud high-circle mages—and then, on the spot, refused their offer of registration.
It was said he never uttered a single incantation when casting. That was how he earned the moniker of the Silent Mage.
Doyle had assumed the stories were exaggerated. A mage who cast without incantations? Such a thing could not exist. He had taken it as a figure of speech for extreme abbreviation of spells.
So he was real after all. The Silent Mage who doesn't so much as move his lips.
But he had just seen it with his own eyes. A man who activated magic with nothing more than a gesture of the hand.
"Baron Veritati, you have my gratitude. I am Rene Bacler, young lord of the Kenipra region. We have finished repairs on the Little Gate and are returning to the Kenipra Gate."
Rene offered his hand. Ellen clasped it.
"Fortunate timing, then. I am headed for the Kenipra Gate myself. If Lord Bacler is going the same way, would you guide me?"
Rene was delighted by the request. He had not expected monsters to have spread this close to the Kenipra Gate.
This place was no longer safe either.
And yet a mage of this caliber was offering to travel with them—if anything, it was they who would be under his protection.
"Very well. I shall guide you."
Rene gestured to the escort knight. Meeting his eyes, the knight directed the soldiers, who set about collecting their fallen comrades and the monster corpses with practiced efficiency. Kenipra fought a war against monsters every year. Its soldiers were inevitably skilled at the grim work that followed a battle.
"We move out."
At Rene's command, the unit set off once more toward the Kenipra Gate.
"The Little Gate was breached, you say?"
Ellen asked Doyle. Over the course of the journey, he had come to understand something.
Rene had no proper grasp of the current situation. Doyle, a Magic Assistant who regularly operated in this region, knew far more about what was happening.
"Yes. As you know, Kenipra faces frequent monster invasions every year. But this year's have been especially fierce."
Kenipra had a long wall built along the Peer Mountains.
The only points of access into the Peer Mountains were the Little Gate and the Kenipra Gate at either end of the wall. Those places were not walls but passageways, plain and simple.
The nations ringing the Peer Mountains had each initially built walls around the range to block monster invasions.
But that caused the monster population within the Peer Mountains to explode.
With nowhere left to go, the monsters, seized by a powerful survival instinct, came to assault the human gates.
So the neighboring nations struck an agreement and opened holes at both ends of the wall. The plan was to draw the monsters there and keep their numbers in check.
"Because of the annual war against the monsters, each gate had been fully prepared. But the rampaging monsters overwhelmed the Little Gate and breached it. They poured through, and we rushed to seal it."
Ellen now understood the ruined villages that looked as though they had been raided.
"The most critical point is the monsters' current condition. Their strength far exceeds previous years. And they seem to know no fear at all. It was like looking at berserkers."
Doyle spoke with a shudder.
"Does that mean they simply charge blindly? No. It was enough to make one think they were moving under someone's chain of command."
"The situation is more serious than I thought."
Monsters operating in an organized, systematic manner was a grave problem.
Monsters possessed physical abilities far superior to humans. The only reason humanity had been able to drive them back was intellect and alliance.
Listening from the side, Rene felt a knot of unease as well.
The incident itself has not changed. Only the timing has been pulled forward.
There was no deviation from the events Ellen had lived through in his previous life. Back then, too, the monster rampage and their organized movements had led to the breach of every gate in Kenipra.
This time, I will uncover the reason. The clue must lie in the Peer Mountains.
Just as that thought settled, Rene's voice reached him.
"It seems we have arrived at the Kenipra Gate. And the situation does not look good."
A fierce battle was raging at the Kenipra Gate.